the energy sanctions are taking a severe toll on their economy. everyone aware of the plummeting value. i helped to look more closely, try to look at their hard currency reserves, and it's my understanding that those reserves have fallen to about $70 billion from a level of about $105 billion at the he happened of 2011. trita talked about the proverbial cup of poison that i told them about in 1988. i also have some reference to that. he accepted that advice to end the war, to give up on the idea of war until victory against iraq, because all of his advisors basically went to him at once and say, victory is not achievable, this is too high a cost, we need to cut our losses. i believe we are getting close to the point where a critical mass of ayatollah khomeini's advisors are going to come to him and tell him that the sanctions are extracting too high a cost and there needs to be a compromise on the nuclear issue. still, they've shown themselves to be highly inflexible, even more so than ayatollah khomeini. to compare it to saddam, saddam hussein, w